why I love Downton Abbey

BLOGANUARY 2025 DAY 13

I remember being on a summer school for my OU degree, and at our very first orientation session when I was feeling decidedly peculiar at being in a uni student environment for the first time in what seemed like a hundred years, we had to write down a few things about ourselves, including our favourite film. Imagine my horror when I realised we would then have to read out our answers to the rest of the group, having innocently put The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as mine. Not, however, as much as the guy who was a policeman and built like the proverbial brick privy, but put Titanic as his best movie of all time. He didn’t live that down all week; I’m sure to this day he still comes out in a rash at the dulcet tones of Celine Dion’s “Neeeaaar, faaaaar, whereevvver you arrrrre….” – poor chap.

Anyway, that was 15 years ago, and I am no longer worried by such loss-of-face situations. It is with such confidence that I can proclaim my enjoyment of Downton Abbey for pure escapism, especially as now it’s on Netflix, I can skip the bits I don’t like, and rewatch seasons 1-4 again and again. I am pleased I experienced it for the first time back in the day when we used to have to wait yes! wait an entire week for each episode as now I can half-watch it while I’m doing something else, and focus in when it gets to a good bit.

I do adore the set, the costumes, and the characters. You’ll have noticed that they crop up quite frequently in my sketchbooks, as Pinterest has some great images from the series. I’m not great at drawing faces accurately but I love the lines and shapes the clothes make, and I think I have mentioned before about drawing from films: the lighting is terrific, and the positioning of everything is wholly designed to be visually pleasing, making it an interesting subject for inspiration.

Here is a two-tone drawing of Carson and Mrs Patmore, using grey ink in my Parker pen, red ink in my Pilot Parallel pen, and some soluble graphite. This is drawn in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook: